In a state of trance

I think it might be of use to relate what I had Seen the night before.

When I sniffed the sweet scents of the burning herbs I suddenly felt very very ill. I blinked and suddenly the forest and the Children all disappeared. I was standing in a very flat green meadow with a woman next to me. She looked like the Virgin; reddish-brown hair, brown eyes, not beautiful by normal standards but dazzlingly serene. She wore the robes the Virgin was normally depicted in and she wore a crown over her simple headdress. The Virgin stretched her hand out to me and I took it. She silently gestured around the meadow. I looked. Gwydion was riding a horse, wearing full armour, carrying a great sword and a mighty staff. Behind him was an entire army. They charged.

The scene changed. We were in a swamp. The army had disappeared. Gwydion was sneaking past the strange trees, looking tired, hungry, frightened, but still fierce. I heard evil laughter, fading, becoming louder, and fading again. Gwydion kept creeping onward. Suddenly a woman appeared before him. She was terrifying, yet lovely. Clearly, she was a witch. The woman cursed him and wounded him. Gwydion screamed in agony. I wanted to scream with him, but the Virgin took my hand again and the scene changed.

We were in a cathedral that was full of people. The people looked so gloomy that at first I thought we had arrived at a funeral. Then I saw Gwydion wearing wedding clothes, walking to the altar, where the witch was waiting for him. The moment he took her hand the cathedral was destroyed and the dream faded away. The last thing to fade was the Witch's gleeful face and evil laugh.

It was night again, and I was in the forest clearing. The Children had disappeared and the great bonfire was now no more than a dying campfire. I was sitting on a log, my body was covered in mud. The Child Queen Eú, who was the woman I saw first, was kneeling in front of me, the two crones kneeling next to her. She looked up at me and smiled, not maliciously, but contently. The crones immediately got to their feet. Eú winked, and the next instant I was asleep in bed.

Author guidance

So the story starts with Inessa. She is the daughter of rich farmers, who was sent away to a convent at age 6 because her parents believed she was a changeling, because of her light ginger hair. However, she witnessed the sinful behaviour of the nuns there and decided to just run away at 15. Now 18, she has lived as a recluse in an abandoned...

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